


Stuffed With Fluff

by TheLucindaC



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Bears, Established Relationship, Euphemisms, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Heart-to-Heart, Innuendo, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Season/Series 04, Puns & Word Play, References to Drugs, Romantic Fluff, Smooching, Teddy Bears, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, i will face canon and walk backwards into hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 06:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20523443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLucindaC/pseuds/TheLucindaC
Summary: Quentin and Eliot have to go to Build-A-Bear for the Baba Yaga's next rent payment. What starts off as Eliot being absolutely devious on his self-imposed mission to have some fun...turns into an experience that brings up lots of old memories about Teddy.Written for The Magicians Rec Center AU Week, Day Five, Crack-fic.





	Stuffed With Fluff

**Author's Note:**

> Season Four ended at 4x10, I don't know what finale y'all are talking about. So this is sometime after that, once they've had Eliot back for a while. That's all there is to it.

“No.”

“Come on.”

“Nooo.”

“We’re already here.”

Quentin grabbed at Eliot’s arm and started to tug him forward. Eliot refused to budge.

“We are not – ”

“Yes, we are,” Quentin said, gritting his teeth. He turned his grimace into a teasing smile, in case they were being watched.

“When you said you ‘figured it out’ and told me to trust you,” Eliot said with steel in his voice, “you didn’t think to say anything about–?”

“Yes, I did,” Quentin hissed, stepping back towards Eliot and trying to keep his voice down. “Your head was buried in your phone. You weren’t listening to me.”

“And when the Baba Yaga was croaking out her grocery list, _you_ must’ve written it down wrong!”

Quentin was two seconds away from having steam coming out of his ears. If Eliot wasn’t so mortified about what Quentin was proposing, he’d’ve decided it was now his ninth favorite Quentin face. It would’ve replaced Q’s “you decided to organize my bookshelf by _color_ instead of by title?!” face, but didn’t quite beat out his “you came back from sneaking into J.R.R. Tolkien’s old office with _what_?!” face.

But Eliot took one more look at the store, and all thoughts about that went right out the window. Eliot crossed his arms, shaking off Quentin’s hold. He didn’t even care that the gesture made him wrinkle his waistcoat.

Quentin’s eyes darted around the square. When the coast was clear, he asked, “And how would _you_ interpret ‘a product of love from the workshop of constructing ursines?!’”

“Not FUCKING_ Build-A-Bear_!”

“Shhhhh!”

Eliot was not going to be shushed. He had about five hundred other colorful curses at the ready. But then a seven-year-old boy came bursting out of the store’s front doors. He held one of those white cardboard houses-slash-carrying boxes in both hands, beaming from ear to ear. One of his mothers followed, looking relieved to have escaped whatever fresh hell she’d gone through inside. Her wife was still paying for the experience at the register.

“Look,” Quentin huffed, “we’re wasting time. Rent’s due tonight. Unless you want to see how serious the Baba’s threats are about boiling our bones into soup, we’re doing this.”

The mother took hold of her son’s hand, stretching her face into a begrudging smile. Eliot watched as the other mother came out of the store. She actually had a genuine smile on her face, and she even playfully asked her son if he was ready to take “Fuzzball” home as she took his other hand. Her wife’s eyes softened as she watched them. As they started to walk down the street together, she leaned over their son’s head and pecked a kiss on her spouse’s cheek.

The sight was enough to chip at Eliot’s resolve. By a smidge.

“And why isn’t someone else doing this?” he asked. “One quick text to Todd and – ”

“And he would’ve gotten lost trying to find the place,” Quentin answered, sensing victory. He grabbed Eliot’s arm again, and this time Eliot let himself be yanked forward.

The mall was mostly empty right now, thank god. A rare, warm day during the first weekend of November meant most kids’d been forced into doing outside activities, either to burn off the last of the Halloween candy sugar high, or to get a final dose of vitamin D before the East Coast’s standard fall gloom descended again. A few dozen families were loitering around them, taking their time and letting some gossiping teenagers pass them by. They headed into Target if they were on a budget, or into Macy’s if they weren’t. Build-A-Bear sat on the lower floor of the mall’s two stories. It was conspicuously positioned on the corner by the food court, and it shared a corridor with Claire’s and a Gamestop.

The nauseating yellow sign loomed before them. It was made of letters that belonged on a first grader’s homework, and topped with the head of a bear offering a hopeful smile. The wide front windows showcased all sorts of options to lure kids in, like Pikachu and Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon. Even Quentin wasn’t immune, eyeballing them in interest as he led Eliot inside.

The little boy from before seemed to have been the only customer. Besides the employees at the counter, the whole store was empty of people, clean, and well-stocked. A sure sign that the manager must be in the back office for the day.

Populated or not, the whole thing still set Eliot’s teeth on edge. Cheery Kidz Bop music blasted from speakers nestled in the whitewashed ceiling. Some interior-design nutjob had decided that the primary colors would make the perfect color scheme. Everything was decorated in either red hearts, yellow clouds, blue gears, or some merciless combination of the three. The entire front right wall of the store displayed row upon row of shelves. They were crammed with examples of what a finished Build-A-Bear product might look like. Below the shelves were large bins, sculpted to look like giant red spools of thread, and inside the bins were the empty husks of what was being showcased on the shelves above. Every cute animal in the menagerie was on offer: not just teddy bears, but dogs, cats, rabbits, horses, an elephant, a zebra, My Little Pony characters, more dragons, more Pokémon, dinosaurs, Paw Patrol, and even motherfucking _themed_ bears, piteously tattooed with sports team logos and superhero crests all over their bodies.

“How’d you even know where to find this place?” Eliot sniffed as the door closed behind them.

“Um, Google?” Quentin turned to him, and offered a placating smile. “Have you ever been to one before?”

“The fact that you have to ask is a little insulting.”

Quentin at least had the consideration to look sheepish. Before he could apologize, one of the employees literally skipped over to introduce herself. The dress code seemed to require a royal blue apron over casual clothes, with the store’s mascot stamped onto the chest area, and sharpies and hand stamps tucked into every pocket. Her blonde hair was held up in honest-to-god pigtails, complete with hot pink bows. Every facet of her make-up had been bastardized with glitter.

“Hi!” she shouted. “My name is Carrie! How can I help you today?”

_Oh, the poor girl_, Eliot thought. _She’s either snorting mountains of cocaine on her breaks, or she actually loves this job. And isn’t afraid to torture us with it._

Then, he got an idea.

A wonderful idea.

A wonderful, awful idea.

If he was going to be tortured, he was going to be the best hostage this store had ever taken.

Q was going to kill him. Or make sure they had wild angry sex the second that they finished paying the Baba.

As Gomez Addams once put it: ‘Either way, what bliss.’ 

“Hiya, Carrie!” Eliot said, his mouth curving into a twenty-gigawatt smile.

Quentin jerked beside him. Eliot could tell his sudden mood swing was setting off all of Q’s alarm bells.

“This is my first time here,” Eliot went on, “so I’m not _quite_ sure where to start.”

“Oh, no problem!” Carrie said. “Were you looking to make a friend today?”

“I think we need the _works_, Carrie. The whole enchilada. Walk us through everything, start to finish.”

Eliot could feel Quentin silently begging him to stop. He squeezed Eliot’s arm in a death grip.

“Awesome! Well, you’ll want to pick your friend out first. Let me know when you’ve found them, and then we’ll get started.”

Carrie skipped over to a large machine beyond the wall of spools. The contraption looked like it was straight out of Toontown from Disneyworld, with fake gears and pipes jutting out from the top and the sides. Two bears were stationed on top, frozen in the middle of pulling some levers.

As they watched her bounce away, Eliot saw a stuffed pink kitten with wide, sky-blue eyes – complete with fairy wings and a princess dress – strapped to her back like a child on one of those carrying harnesses.

That poor cat.

“Thank you!” Eliot called after her, and he went over to the wall to begin their selection.

“What are you doing?”

Eliot turned to see Quentin’s concerned expression. “I’m _making a friend_. Won’t you come help me?”

“What’s with you all of a sudden?”

“I definitely don’t want to be evicted,” Eliot simpered. “You were right. Either we do this, or we end up in soup. Or squatting at Brakebills again. Or making ourselves some cardboard mattresses and sleeping on the street. I can’t tell which sounds worse.”

Quentin sidled up to him and surveyed their options. “Yeah, but I just thought we’d make this quick. You know, just make something and get out of here.”

“We have to make the Russian eldritch monster happy, Q,” Eliot reminded him in a sing-song tone.

He started forward, eyeing one particular specimen.

“We are not doing a unicorn!”

“But this one isn’t just any unicorn. It’s the Color Craze Unicorn. It’s got rainbows. On its hooves. The Swirl Unicorn over there wishes it was that extra.”

Quentin ran a hand through his fringe and said, in a pained voice, “As much as I wanna represent, El, let’s try something else.”

Eliot set the unicorn down, and walked a few feet down the wall. “So, what I’m hearing is, we should do the Jumbo Rainbow Friends Bear.”

“No.”

“But you can get a name stitched on its foot.”

Quentin started in the opposite direction, his hands on his hips. “And it’s $75.”

Eliot held up another option. “How about Pawlette over here?”

“No.”

“Vanilla Swirls Lamb?”

“No.”

“Longhorn Cow?”

“Russian. Eldritch. Monster, Eliot.”

“Fine,” Eliot grinned, “you pick something.”

And of fucking course, Quentin got this pensive, thoughtful look on his face that melted Eliot’s heart into a puddle. After a bit of consideration, he went for the White Tiger (_because it was a _Siberian_ Tiger, oh, Jesus Christ, Q_), reaching his hand in to pick up one of the empty furs. He stiffened, running his hands over the material. “Oh my god, come feel this.”

“What?”

“It’s so _soft_.”

Eliot raised his eyebrows and sauntered over. When he grabbed one for himself, his whole brain short-circuited for a second. “What the fuck.”

“I knooow.”

Eliot wanted a blanket of just this. Multiple pillows too. He wanted slippers, socks, even gloves. And just because he wanted to see the look on Q’s face, he whispered, like he couldn’t help himself, “I want to rub it all over my naked body.”

Quentin dropped the one in his hands like it was electrified. But Eliot didn’t miss how his chest stuttered, and that his pupils went very wide, very fast.

“Maybe not,” Quentin said, clearing his throat.

“Can I at least buy, like, twenty, and line my coat with them for the winter?”

Quentin snorted, trying to get his breathing back to normal. “Easy, Cruella.” He moved away from Eliot, picking up and then dismissing a few other animals. Eliot let him get away with that, running his hands over some more nearby critters for the hell of it. They really were ridiculously soft. Not just the tiger, but practically everything he got his hands on. Magic couldn’t have done this; they’d be able to tell. It didn’t stop the suspicion from flitting through his mind, though.

The two of them spent a few more minutes browsing. He dismissed several cats, breezed by a llama, and even resisted suggesting the Mer-Bear. If Eliot wasn’t careful, he suspected he might start taking this whole thing seriously.

Quentin stopped again, and at first Eliot didn’t think anything of it. When a longer moment passed and Quentin didn’t move on, Eliot got curious.

He plucked the tan blob of fluff out of Quentin’s hands. “Timeless Teddy?”

Quentin didn’t look up.

Eliot didn’t get it. Until he did.

He softened his voice, and quietly said, “It’s just a bear, honey.”

“Yeah, I know,” Quentin sighed. He tried his best to brush it off, shaking his head and glancing at Eliot out of the corner of his eye. “Did you just say ‘it’s just a bear, _honey_?’ Like – ”

Eliot rolled his eyes. “Shut up.” Out of spite, and totally not because he’d decided Quentin’s choice actually couldn’t be more perfect, he marched over to Carrie. “We found him!” he announced.

“Great!” she said. She outright applauded him as he came to stand in front of the machine. “Did you want to choose a sound for him? There’s a ton of options.” She held up a hand to indicate some little cubbies on a nearby kiosk. They were all labeled with various onomatopoeias. “Or you can even record your own sound, if you’d like.”

“Oh really?”

“Vetoed,” Quentin said as he made his way over.

“Okay then,” Carrie said, completely unphased. “There are scents, too.”

“No, thank you.”

“Vetoed,” Eliot butted in. He scanned another section of the kiosk and picked out two little packets. “Lavender, I think. And vanilla.”

“I don’t think…_she_ is going to like that.” Quentin bit his lip and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

“I do,” Eliot hummed.

Carrie clasped both of her hands together. “You can put those right inside your friend now. Because next, we have a special ceremony to perform.”

Quentin and Eliot shared a look. “Do tell,” Eliot said, refusing to blink as Quentin stared him down.

“It’s the Heart Ceremony!” Carrie cheered. She pointed at the front of the machine, indicating a life-size version of the same bear as the one on the sign out front. This bear had a body, at least, and in the center of its chest was a plastic tub with a big red heart sticking out at the end. The tub was filled to the brim with small vinyl hearts. Some were just plain red, while others had a pink and white plaid pattern. “Go ahead and take one.”

Eliot did as he was told, snagging a plaid heart, and then asked, “Can Quentin take one too?”

“I’m g– ”

“Of course! Twice the love!”

With all the enthusiasm of a cat taking its first bath, Quentin pulled one hand out of his pocket, and plucked out a red heart for himself. He held it pinched between his fingers like it might explode any second.

“Now, you guys have hearts inside you, right?”

Quentin hastily agreed with her before Eliot had the chance to respond.

“Of course you do. We all do. And our hearts do a lot for us,” Carrie continued. Her eyes took on a glassy look.

_Either the coke’s kicked in with a vengeance, or this girl found religion in this workshop tonight, _Eliot thought, not without a little concern.

“They help us get where we need to go. They keep us alive. They help us be kind to others. They help us to be really brave, even when it’s really hard. They help us love one another with everything we have.”

Eliot shifted on his feet.

Oh shit. This corny stuff was starting to work.

“Now, your bear’s heart has been sleeping for a long time. It’s been waiting for us to wake it up, so it can give you the same love we share with each other. So I want you to raise your heart up in the air. On the count of three, we’re going to shout ‘wake up!’ Ready?”

Eliot gathered air into his lungs.

“One. Two. Three!”

“WAKE UP!”

Quentin’s shout had drowned out Eliot’s. It even surprised the other employee still by the register. Eliot smirked at him, and Quentin glared back beneath his eyebrows. He seemed to have gotten the idea to fight fire with fire.

“And now,” Carrie instructed, “we need to warm that heart up with some love. Put it in between your hands and rub them back and forth.”

They both obeyed. Eliot got so much friction out of it, he probably could’ve burned himself if he kept it up.

“Next, we need to touch that heart to our toes, so our new friend knows he’s toe-tally awesome.”

Quentin bent down and moved the heart back and forth over his shoelaces. Eliot followed just a beat later, because he couldn’t believe she just said that.

“And touch your heart to your knees, so he can always be there when you _need_ him.”

Eliot was trying really hard to keep it together. Quentin was already finished by the time Eliot straightened his spine, and straightened his face.

“Now rub it against your backs, so he always has your back.”

_Is she just fucking with us now?_

“And rub it on your ears, so he’ll always be ready to listen to your worries and tell you it’s gonna be okay.”

_Don’t get any ideas, bear. Listening to Quentin’s _my_ job._

“Last but not least, I want you close your eyes, hold that heart close to yours, and make a special, secret wish that your bear will always hold onto for you.”

Closing his fist around the little heart and pressing it to his sternum, he tried to think of something. Because he wasn’t going to _not _think of something. Nor was he going to think of something ingenuine – he wasn’t about to be outdone by Mr. Improvises A Crowning Ceremony On The Fly - “because it’s important and we should honor it” - over there.

But if they were supposed to wish on the Baba’s behalf, Eliot had no fucking clue what she might want. Maybe, he hoped, that wasn’t the point. If this bear was part of their rent, then what they put into it needed to be valuable for _them_. It was going to pay for everyone – Bambi, Quentin, Julia, Alice, Kady, even Penny-23 and friggin’ Josh Hoberman – to have a roof over their heads. A place to regroup, recharge, even enjoy each other’s company once in a while. He pursed his lips and decided to tell the heart:

_I wish for Quentin to always know how much we love him. Whenever his brain breaks, or tries to lie to him, I wish that he’ll be able to use our love to help pull him through. Whenever I turn into a massive bitchy drama queen, whenever I act like a coward, or drink too much, or brush off emotional intimacy because being a snarky jackass is easier, I wish that he knows my love for him won’t have conditions, or fade, or have an expiration date. I wish that he knows my love for him is for forever. Peaches and plums, motherfucker. _

He opened his eyes, and slid the heart into the bear, along with the lavender and vanilla packets. He snuck a glance over, and saw Quentin opening his eyes too. The mood had shifted between them. A heaviness had settled along Quentin’s shoulders. Not the worrisome kind of heavy, but definitely some kind of somber sentiment had passed through him. Wordlessly, Eliot held open the seam with his fingers, and Quentin slid his heart in beside Eliot’s.

That heart’s wish was for Eliot to always know how much he was loved too. But only the bear was privy to that.

Carrie then asked to take the bundle of fur from Eliot, and after he handed it over, she pressed a neon blue button on the side of the machine. The appliance hummed to life. A wide window on its front revealed mounds of cotton. As power flowed through it, a mill inside began to rotate, mixing up all the tufts. Carrie sat down on a stool designed to look like a big black spring. She poked her pink acrylic nails into the seam, loosening the brown thread along its edges. Then she popped off some kind of buffer on a steel pipe sticking out from the machine, and slid the hole of their virgin bear right onto the pipe with no prep or foreplay.

“Time to stuff him up,” she said brightly, and Eliot lost it. He snared Quentin into a hug, and pressed his forehead onto his shoulder. His whole body shook.

“Keep it together,” Quentin said, clenching his teeth.

“I’m trying. I swear, I’m trying,” Eliot said.

Carrie only smiled wider. “Can one of you guys press your foot down on that pedal? He’s waiting for you.”

“Be gentle with him, Q,” Eliot wheezed.

Quentin smacked him, and moved to put his foot down over a pedal on the floor. Carrie started with the bear’s leg, and slowly the animal began to take shape, each limb inflating with stuffing like a balloon. Then she moved on to its head. As the snout filled, Eliot finally saw the small shiny eyes of their bear for the first time. He was struck by a blip of unexpected tenderness towards it.

Finishing with the torso, she advised that Quentin step off the pedal, and she handed the bear back. “Make sure to give him a BIG hug, and check to see that he’s stuffed just right.”

Eliot squeezed the bear into his bosom like the matron of brothel, while Quentin gently folded him into his chest, resting his chin in the space between the bear’s round ears. Once they both said they were satisfied, Carrie took it back to sew up the loose threads, tie them off, and snip the excess with some kiddie scissors.

She rocketed up from her stool. “Alright, guys, there’s three more steps. And these deserve that personal touch, so I’ll leave you to it, and you can find me over at the register if you have any questions.”

“So what’re we doing?” Quentin asked. Eliot tried not to be jealous as he saw him take the bear back, and subconsciously tuck him under his chin again.

“You’ll want to head on over to the grooming station. Make sure his fur is nice and fluffy for his first day out of the workshop.” Carrie pointed to a blue table against the store’s back wall. Its rim was decorated with bumpy plastic soap suds. Two fake showerheads leaned over it. “Then, you get to dress him up.”

“Dress –”

“Eliot –”

“Him –”

“– control –”

“Up.”

“– yourself,” Quentin murmured, knowing it was a lost cause.

And oh, was it ever. The back left wall was a lavish, indecorous, floor-to-ceiling clothing closet. Hundreds of outfits hung from pegs on little yellow hangers. He could see every color of the spectrum, every job uniform, every popular superhero costume. There were pajamas, sequined jackets and skirts, overalls, printed tees, sweater vests, Star Wars robes, flapper dresses, winter coats, tank tops, crop tops, jeans, shorts, capes, bathing suits, tutus, rain coats, even motherfucking bear _underwear_ (boxers _and _panties, thank you). And the _accessories_: sandals, hand mirrors, safari hats, fishing hats, bows, bowties, tiaras, slippers, purses, miniature soccer balls, hair brushes, magic wands, suitcases, flower crowns, bath robes…

Sure, some of it was a little over-gendered, but since when had that ever stopped him? At waist height, there were even little blue desks nearby that provided mirrors, above which were emblazoned the words “Dressing Room.”

“My time has come,” he breathed, and floated over to the wall without a second glance. He chose to ignore the audible groan that followed him.

For the next ten minutes, Eliot swam in an ocean of possibilities.

Briefly, he noted Quentin conducting his due diligence at the grooming station. A pedal on the floor blasted air out of the showerheads, fluffing the fur as promised. Quentin even took the time to smooth out the bear’s fur afterwards with a plastic bristle brush.

Less briefly, while Quentin smoothed a few specks out of the bear’s glass eyes, Eliot wondered if he was thinking about their first Teddy too. The way he’d bring each of his toys along whenever they had to go into town, or played games with them as his teammates and rivals, or handed those toys down to their grandkids when the little ones were old enough. As much as Eliot wanted to go over and place a knowing touch on his shoulder, he reasoned it’d be better to leave Quentin alone with his memories, to turn them over in his mind like bittersweet treasures.

Once Quentin was finished, he deposited the bear at the nearest Dressing Room, and – very _very _wisely – took a few steps back and crossed his arms, not saying a word as Eliot took down his fifth dress.

It took him a while, but finally he narrowed things down to a dozen options. He decided to lay them out in a line, like he was preparing _Vogue_’s next seasonal spread. He’d found a smart grey pinstriped waistcoat, with a white undershirt and a patterned blue tie, not dissimilar to one he had at home. There was the Pretty Roses Dress, the Gold and Red Tulle Dress, the Pink Lace Dress, the Flamingo and Pineapple Dress, and the Tropical Summer Dress. These all lay next to a simple ensemble, jeans and a t-shirt, which had a unicorn and the words “You’re Magical” on it, because Humor™.

The tricky part was the hoodies. He didn’t abide by sweatshirts on principle (Quentin had a monopoly on that department, and refused to budge), but all the hoods had wide slits in them, to allow the bears ears to poke through. Eliot was a little bit in love with that look. He set one aside, the Rainbow Heart Hoodie, and moved along.

He did eventually return the Stay Cool outfit to the wall. And, reluctantly, the Pineapple Costume joined it a moment later.

When he didn’t put anything else back for another five minutes, Quentin cleared his throat. “Not to burst your bubble…”

“Careful, darling.”

“But keep in mind, we’re giving this guy away,” he finished, coming over to prop his arm on Eliot’s shoulder and checking out the remaining outfits.

“And he must be perfect,” Eliot insisted. He shot a glance over at Carrie and her coworker for a moment before he said, “Who knows what…Grannie Yaga will do with him once we hand him over?”

Quentin checked his phone for the time. “The sooner we’re done, the sooner we’re allowed to keep living in Kady’s apartment.”

“Fine,” Eliot said. He put back all of the dresses, and even the grey waistcoat set, but took out a pair of heart shaped sunglasses and snagged a pair of the rainbow flip-flop sandals. With gusto, he dressed their bear in a rainbow leopard-print tank and a pair of purple shorts, slid the sandals over its feet, and…shit, he really was a sucker for one particular high-strung supernerd. Because on went that damn Rainbow Heart Hoodie after all.

He held up the finished product for Quentin’s inspection.

And, miracle of miracles, Quentin asked, “Does it need the hoodie?”

“Yes.”

“How about the glasses?”

“Nope,” Eliot said, and promptly tossed them back in the bin.

“Looks good.”

Eliot basked in the praise like a peacock.

Carrie took this as her queue. “He looks fabulous! Head on over to the computers there.”

There was a row of monitors and keyboards in the middle of the room. They sat themselves on their own black spring stools, and woke up one of the sleeping screens.

“We’re…”

“Yup.”

It wanted them to make a fucking birth certificate. And the very first line was, naturally, to put in its name.

This might make or break them. Last week they’d been a few drinks in when Margo’d decided to invent a new drinking game: everyone had to take a drink whenever someone opened a door in a movie. And Eliot, like a true alcoholic genius, had suggested they put on Monsters Inc. But before he was too far gone, he distinctly remembered Mike Wazowski reprimanding, “Once you name it, you start getting attached to it.”

“Soooo…” Quentin’s leg started bouncing up and down, like he was this close to just heading over to the register and then bolting out the door.

But Eliot was in too deep to stop now. They both were. “Just one name should do,” he declared, flexing his fingers. “While you ponder, my name’s going here. No need to make the child go through a joint-custody battle.” He typed in “Ex-High King Eliot” under the “Belongs To” section.

“Okay, um…” Quentin’s leg started to bounce even faster. Eliot knocked the sole of Quentin’s shoe with the toe of his boot. “Thanks. Um.”

“Dimitri?”

Quentin looked puzzled.

Eliot shrugged. “It’s Russian. Isn’t it that guy’s name from Anastasia?”

“I mean, yeah. Your other options were Vlad or _Rasputin_, so at least you remembered the right one.”

_At least my plan to get you out of a spiral worked_, Eliot thought wryly. “Know any other Russian names?”

“Alexei. Or, um, Nikolai. But that’s Anastasia’s brother and dad, and they were kind of, um, executed.”

“Well, my offerings are limited to, like, Lenin and Stalin and Putin, and I’m not putting those on the table.”

Quentin reached for his phone. “I can look up some more.”

“No, no, no. This has to happen _au natural_,” Eliot said, reaching over and maneuvering Quentin’s arm back onto the desk. “Let’s not limit ourselves to Russians. What else is there?”

Looking over at their bear, after a little while Quentin suggested Angel, from _Rent_.

Eliot pressed his lips together and gave Quentin a pitying look. “I do appreciate the tongue-in-cheek humor. I really do. And you’re in musical territory, I get it.”

“But?”

“Angel dies. Can I have ‘Classic Bury Your Gays’ for 400, Trebeck.”

“Then, maybe Collins?”

“Left to mourn his lover’s passing, and the conclusion to his character arc is hotwiring an ATM machine.”

They moved away from musicals, trading names back and forth. Eliot allowed Quentin to volley off literary characters, and he returned with actors and characters from movies. TV show characters were free-for-all. But even so, nothing seemed to fit right. The discussion got a little heated as they kept at it. Neither of them were above scoffing at some suggestions and outright whining at others. Eventually, they just started to run out of ideas, and began spouting off really ridiculous names. They went beyond the one name limit, giving him stuffy surnames and dumb middle names and lordly titles. But of course the chuckles soon died down, and they were still left with that taunting blank space on the monitor.

Out of the blue, Quentin batted Eliot’s fingers away from the keyboard and handed him his wallet. “How about you go pay? I got this.”

Tilting his head, Eliot considered Quentin for a second but decided not to press him. He plucked Nameless off of the table and presented him to Carrie and her handheld scanner. She entered in each tag, starting with the bear itself and working her way down his outfit. She started to ask him about joining their Bonus Club, which Eliot was tempted to accept, remembering that he’d decided to be a royal dick about this whole thing. In the end, he politely declined. He had to admit, the tone of this whole ordeal had shifted away from torture.

That is, until he saw the final bill, with tax, came out to be just under $60. Maybe he should have held himself back on the clothes. He turned to see Quentin climbing up from the stool. An icon on the computer screen said the certificate was on its way to the printer.

“I can get it, if you want,” Eliot offered when he saw the total.

Q shook his head. “I got out enough.”

“When?”

“When we stopped for Starbucks before and there was an ATM around the corner.”

Eliot frowned. “You knew we’d need…”

“Julia dragged me to one of these places every couple of months when we were ten,” Quentin chuckled. “I was the co-parent of…five of these guys? But then she got bored and gave them away in middle school.”

“Harsh.”

“Practical,” Quentin shrugged, not quite meeting Eliot’s eyes. He took his wallet back from Eliot and handed Carrie three twenties over the counter.

While they’d been chatting, Carrie’s coworker – Wynn, according to her nametag – had unfurled the token white cardboard bear house. Their certificate was placed in the bottom before Eliot could catch a glimpse of the name. As the cash register chimed with the sound of their purchase, their bear was nestled into the box, the cardboard flaps folding up around him.

“Carrie, you were a tremendous help today,” Eliot said, bowing his head as a monarch might at a subject.

“Happy to help! Hope you come back soon!” she replied.

They waved at her as they turned to leave, Eliot taking the box and Quentin pocketing the leftover change. Once outside the store, they made their way through the central square in silence.

Eliot’s brain was pressuring him to make some kind of comment. Something to make Quentin laugh again, or look at him with his “you could do anything stupid and you’d still be clever in my eyes” face.

Instead, while he was all mixed up in his own head, Quentin simply slid his fingers between Eliot’s. They held hands for as long as possible, before Eliot had to let go to draw a portal on a maintenance closet door. Eliot didn’t know whether he was seeking comfort, or giving it.

“I think she’ll like him,” Eliot said as he reached towards the top of the door to start the spell.

“She’d better,” Quentin said.

Eliot flicked his eyes at him. If he was being honest, he didn’t think he was quite up for a heart-to-heart just this second. Making an entire bear was surprisingly draining work. And probably, if he pressed him now, Quentin wouldn’t let himself air out the thoughts obviously nagging at him. Better to let him feel them for a little while, rather than resolve them just to ease the tension.

He finished the portal, and rubbed a hand on Quentin’s back in a few gentle circles, guiding him through into Kady’s apartment.

* * *

“Not possible,” Eliot said.

“What?” Julia asked.

“Are you sure?” Quentin said, coming to a stop beside Eliot, who was unconvincingly trying to hide their Build-A-Bear behind his back.

Julia’s voice took on that tone, the one when things couldn’t be more obvious to her, and she was going to patiently wait for everyone else to catch up. “She was here about ten minutes ago.”

“You got the – ”

“Yep. Quick trip to the Black Market.”

Quentin let out a long breath through his nose. “But what about the diamond salad tongs?”

“That vampire got bored with them five centuries ago, apparently.”

Eliot cracked the bones in his fingers from squeezing the cardboard handle too hard. “And you just happened to find ‘a workshop of constructing ursines’ how?”

“No, no, let me tell it,” Margo said with a grin. She turned around on the bar stool where she was sipping a cosmo. “I was in the elevator, on my way down to Tiffany’s, and it stops on the fourteenth floor. This guy, had to be six foot three, gets on. And at first I think he’s a stripper. He’s got the construction vest, the hard hat, the wife-beater, the beard, the toolbox. I said ‘hey,’ like any sane person would, and we get to chatting. Turns out he’s going to an artist’s fair before heading to work. Because his Naturalist partner forgot his enchanted mallet and chisel. And no, that wasn’t a euphemism. It really was for the commissions he might get at his booth.”

“You ran into a…bear…in the elevator.”

“Don’t be jealous, El,” Margo said with a wag of her finger. “If I hadn’t found them, my next stop would’ve been checking in with Humbledrum.”

Quentin was having trouble keeping up. And keeping himself upright. He walked over to the kitchen bar, leaning on it with both hands. “So what was the product of love?”

“A wooden tennis ball from a wooden tennis…scene thing. The bear and his Naturalist partner made it together one night. The art fair was on the way back from Tiffany’s; I was being a good neighbor.”

“What the fuck,” Eliot said.

“Love?” Quentin asked faintly.

Julia started to explain, but Quentin held up his hand to stop her. “Guess we don’t have to worry anymore,” he sighed as he turned on his heel, brushing past Eliot and snagging the box from behind his back. Then he clanked up the spiral stairs. “Thanks, Jules. Thank you, Margo,” he called down, almost like it was an afterthought.

“No prob, Q,” Julia said, just loud enough for him to hear before he closed the door to his bedroom. She chewed on her bottom lip with her teeth.

Margo turned to Eliot with a silent, questioning look. His equally nonverbal response was somewhere along the lines of “I have an idea of what’s going on; best leave him alone.” Margo frowned but nodded her head, keeping the movements small in case their audience of one thought she cared more than she let on. Eliot huffed and winked, smiling just a little to reassure her.

But Eliot could also see the wheels turning in Julia’s head. She was a genius; it wouldn’t take her long to connect the dots for why they’d come back with a Build-A-Bear box. Especially considering what Q had said earlier.

He offered to get started on dinner, asking Julia how many of their group they should expect. In a rare stroke of luck, it turned out each of their friends were due to trickle in over the course of the evening.

Eliot shot a text to Quentin about their expected company. He let him know he was welcome to help in the kitchen if he was feeling up to it. Quentin replied with an uncapitalized ‘no thanks, napping’ about five minutes later as Eliot started chopping the onions. And that was rather telling on its own. Eliot remembered the urge he’d felt to talk to Quentin before they’d stepped through the portal. He almost turned off the fire on the stove right then, caught up in the idea of climbing the tower to kiss the floppy-haired king waiting for him.

Then he saw Julia staring at the second floor too. He called her over to start chopping the carrots, celery, and peppers, while he started mixing the spices for the Japanese curry he was preparing. Guilt prickled at his gut after she took the bait. But as much as he knew she’d be able to help Q in her own way, the fifty years of experience tugging at his heart knew a little better.

After sautéing some chicken and popping Jasmine rice in the cooker, the meal was ready in less than an hour. Margo and Julia dished up first, since they were already around. A bit later, Eliot handed out bowls to Josh and Penny-23, who’d meandered in about ten minutes apart from each other.

None of them had ever been the sort to formally sit down to a meal together, much less one with napkins or place settings. This, though, was the next best thing: the group standing around in the kitchen, wolfing down food over a few beers and chatting at each other with their mouths full. Once everyone was finished, Eliot asked Josh to put some leftovers aside for Alice and/or Kady while he took some up to Q.

The door was barred by a few strong wards. Not a good sign. But when he got closer, it seemed Quentin’d been in a good enough headspace to make one Eliot-shaped exception. The door swung open without a sound as he approached. Then the wards resealed themselves behind him.

Quentin wasn’t napping. Lying on his left side, he’d sat his laptop on the bed, arranging the pillows to prop his head up without sacrificing his view of the screen. A few flashes lit up his eyes. It was hard to tell whether the video actually had his attention, judging by the zoned-out look on his face. Eliot flicked his fingers, and his magic moved a lone, unoccupied pillow against the headboard.

This was a routine he’d perfected over many years. He knew to stick with nonverbal stuff for a while.

With a few tuts, the bowl in his hands floated in the air over their heads as he settled himself on the bed, leaning against his allotted pillow. Q didn’t move at first. Eliot placed a hand on his shoulder, patting him three times to rouse him.

Quentin cracked his neck as he sat up, and without looking away from the screen, he moved some of his own pillows to settle back beside Eliot. Another flick of Eliot’s wrist brought the bowl down, right into Quentin’s waiting hands. He spooned the curry slowly, his eyes never leaving the screen.

Eliot glanced over, and was in no way surprised he had no idea what the movie was. He closed his eyes, letting the sound from the speakers flit in and out of his head. This was his chance to recharge too. The feeling of Quentin’s legs next to his. The way his body was sinking into the mattress, Tempurpedic at its finest. The soft light barely making it through the pulled window shades. The rest of the room in shadow, except for the little ambient, heatless magic lamps that’d been hung along the ceiling. The perfect temperature of the air. The breathing of his love beside him. All calm, all easy. Nothing expected of them.

He could feel the stress easing out of Q’s body with every bite. The biggest compliment was when he kept scraping the sides of the bowl, even after it was all gone.

When it eventually got into Q’s head that there wasn’t anything left, Eliot shifted a little, floating the bowl out of his hands again and cleaning it with a quick spell before setting it down on a desk.

Quentin inhaled, and Eliot slid his arm along his back, giving him permission if he wanted to take it. Q tugged a few pillows out of the way, and nestled himself against Eliot’s chest. 

After half an hour, there was a grandiose swell to the music. The glow from the screen faded to black behind Eliot’s eyelids. He realized their breathing had synchronized. It wasn’t the deep breathing of sleep though, not yet.

“Can we talk?” Eliot asked, still not opening his eyes.

The “we” aspect of it was the key here. Requests of “Talk to me” never got either of them anywhere. It was too easy to go on a self-guilt trip. Even if the talking was more for one person than the other, presenting “our-ness” of the conversation was the linchpin: both sides would talk, both sides would listen.

“We can. You sure you want to?” Quentin said.

“You’ve caught me during one of my rare bursts of maturity.”

Quentin cracked his neck again, and his right hand played with the button on Eliot’s waistcoat pocket.

Eliot rested his fingers on Quentin’s upper arm, smoothing out the wrinkles on the sleeve. “Was today a little rough from the start? Or did our little adventure make some dominoes fall over?”

“A…a little rough from the start, yeah. I thought I’d just carry it around. Got ready for…today being gray around the edges.” Quentin swallowed. “Even though the Baba showing up wasn’t expected, it was something to do. And my brain started working, put some pieces together. It was something I didn’t have to – I was – my head was. Buzzing a little. Like ‘I’m _doing_ something. Something good. There was a point to me getting out of bed today.’”

“Mmm hmm.” Eliot moved his hand to smooth Quentin’s fringe behind his ear.

“It didn’t make the grey go away. But I felt some colors again.”

“You sure you weren’t just blinded by Carrie’s bedazzled – ”

“No.” Quentin nudged Eliot’s ribs with his shoulder, a reprimand without any edge to it.

Eliot apologized. He reminded himself that the whole point was to keep Quentin from walling himself off. And Quentin, even with his brain coming after him right now, knew that, deep down. It’d taken a few paradoxical decades, but he knew.

“We did do a good job today,” Eliot asserted after a moment of silence, continuing to run his fingers through Quentin’s hair. “I’m glad you took me with you. That you didn’t do it alone.”

“We didn’t do _anything_ today.”

Eliot hadn’t seen the white box-house when he came in. He guessed it was either in the closet, or under the bed. “Nuh uh,” he chided. “Go get our little project.”

He felt Quentin sigh heavily against his ribs. He tapped him three times again.

“Fine.”

Turned out, the box was under the bed after all. Eliot opened his eyes as Quentin pried apart the cardboard roof and took the bear out. Against the glow of the laptop, the rainbow hoodie was the brightest thing in the room. He held out his left hand. When Quentin handed the bear over, he not-so-sneakily settled it right in between them, and drew Quentin back against his chest all at once. He felt Quentin sharply draw air into his lungs. It took some time, but soon he allowed himself to place his arm around Eliot’s, creating a little circle in their arms.

It wasn’t unlike those nights when Teddy’d crawled into bed with them after a bad dream.

Not in any way a substitute, of course. But the faint familiarity was there, the hint of memories resting between them.

“I know seeing his name didn’t help, in some ways,” Eliot acknowledged a beat later. “But it helped in others, too.”

He didn’t realize how sure he felt about that, until the words were already out there.

Quentin tightened his fingers around Eliot’s sleeve. “Not just his name,” Quentin whispered.

Eliot nodded. He took a deep breath. His own brain was trying to shut himself up, to prevent the flow of vulnerability from pouring out of him. “I wanted him there with us,” he whispered back, before his walls finished rising up.

Quentin froze, but Eliot didn’t allow himself to stop. This hurt was good for both of them. It would hurt more _not_ to say it. Each sentence had a long pause after, because Eliot wanted to let the imagery settle on them both before he offered the next one.

“He would have chosen the tiger, just like you did.”

…

“He would’ve screamed ‘wake up’ louder than anyone had in the history of that store.”

…

“He would’ve peppered that little heart with a million kisses, until we had to ask him to stop.”

…

“He would’ve picked out the sailor’s outfit, because it wouldn’t’ve made any sense. And he would’ve laughed at the look on our faces when we kept asking him and he refused to tell us.”

Quentin squeezed his eyes shut. He was nodding, his breathing shuddering out of him.

“Making this thing was good for _us_, sweetheart,” Eliot concluded. “We did something for _us_ today.”

Quentin pressed his face into Eliot’s chest. His arm tightened. Eliot felt the bear’s body fold itself a little more into the space between them.

“You asshole,” Quentin moaned.

That was as good of a “thank you, you’re right, it feels good to talk about him,” as Eliot was probably going to get.

Eliot moved his arm up, ghosting his fingers along the bear’s fur. “I know.”

Just imagining Teddy running around with them, no matter where they went or what store they might’ve taken him to, was enough to carve out a hole in Eliot’s chest. He’d let clothing and competition occupy him before. But now, the thought of Teddy _being here_? The shine in his eyes whenever he squealed for joy? The pout on his face if he didn’t get what he wanted? The clever twist in his mouth – a trait so like Quentin it was disorienting – when he figured out how to parent-shop between the two of them?

That opened up a whole other slew of what-ifs: bringing Teddy to ice cream parlors, theme parks, the zoo. Sending him off to school for the first time, the second time, the twelfth time. Teddy seeing New York’s Fourth of July fireworks in the harbor, even though none of them were remotely patriotic. Margo teaching him how to paint his nails, how to intimidate the fuck out of bullies, how to strike that perfect balance of cool and nerdy when you were around your people. Beach bonfires, with Quentin’s not-half-bad s’mores. Hosting birthday parties. Thanksgiving dinners. Christmas mornings. Tucking him into bed, knowing he was pretending to be asleep just so one of them would carry him in from a long car ride.

“Can you imagine…” Quentin began.

“Yeah,” Eliot said, his heart in a vice grip.

“But…”

“But what?”

“But we had it good with him, too,” Quentin said, the clouds in his head breaking just a little. It was a minor revelation. Something he’d known all along, but just needed a little push to remember, and appreciate, all over again.

“Couldn’t’ve had it better,” Eliot agreed. He made sure his voice didn’t break.

Quentin turned his head up to look at him. A question. A statement.

When the emotions couldn’t hold themselves back anymore, Eliot bent his head and kissed him.

Quentin’s stubble scratched Eliot’s cupid’s bow. One of Eliot’s curls drifted down to brush over Quentin’s jaw, making the side of his mouth curl up as it tickled. Q’s lips were perfect, as always: smooth and slightly chapped, so that when Eliot moved back and then pressed in for another kiss, there was just a little inertia.

It was full of ache, this gentle press of lips.

A kiss that was both “I need you” and “I’m here.” It carried with it something that wasn’t quite hunger. More like magnetism – a promise of drawing close and holding on, so long as the other person drew close and held on too.

Eliot’s chest couldn’t fill up with air fast enough. But the thought of pulling away was a faint, flickering thing. What was oxygen, compared to how Q’s heart was thumping against his breastbone, how Q’s hand cupped his jaw, how the tip of Q’s nose bumped his cheek as he tilted his head. What were the needs of his body, compared to the needs of Quentin’s.

They drew apart after a century in minutes, pressing their foreheads together and just breathing. The credits had ended, and the app now had a few recommended titles fading in and out across its window.

“Time for bed?” Eliot asked.

Quentin shrugged. “I mean, I’m tired, but don’t you wanna chat with Margo for a bit while she’s here?”

“I might, later. Or tomorrow morning,” Eliot said, and he stretched his face into a big fake yawn.

Quentin gave a little half smile, a thank you for what Eliot was offering, and climbed off the bed. Eliot turned to his own chest of drawers along the wall, picking out some burgundy drawstring pants. When he finished changing, he turned to see Quentin heedlessly putting on the two closest articles of clothing. He’d pulled on an old Buffy t-shirt. And was in the middle of cinching up Eliot’s pajama bottoms from last night.

“You tell her yet? About where I took us today?” Quentin asked.

Eliot sat back on the bed, admiring the view like always, even if his pants made Q look like he was wearing over-stretched accordions. “I mean, I kinda have to sooner or later. It’s all a matter of when you want the teasing to start.”

“Hmm. You gonna tell her how _you_ got really into it too?”

Eliot floated Quentin’s laptop over onto the desk, so neither of them kicked it off the bed in their sleep. As the lid clicked shut, he shot Quentin a glare. “You didn’t tell me to stop.”

“And she’s gonna _demand_ why you decided to make it a him and not a her,” Quentin said thoughtfully, like he hadn’t heard. He turned around, a pitying frown on his face as he started putting all the pillows back where they belonged.

Eliot sensed he might be walking into a trap. “It almost sounds like you want to tell her.”

“I guess it’s a matter of when you want the teasing to start.”

Eliot flopped back onto the pillows. “It won’t just be Margo asking questions,” he warned, looking up at the ceiling. He knew he wasn’t using the right ammunition, but nothing else was coming to mind and he just wanted some more snuggles, damnit.

Quentin slid onto the bed, plucking the bear into his arms. “We could always give him to Margo as a peace offering? Redirect some of the questions before they even get started.”

“You mean give her blackmail material?” Eliot tugged the bear back, his fingers playing with the bear’s floppy ears. “But my name’s on the birth certificate. He’s mine.”

Quentin outright grinned. Eliot knew that his love could see right through him. Even after all these years, he was still getting used to that as a reassuring thing, rather than something to be feared.

They settled into each other’s arms as they got under the covers together. Eliot wasn’t so much of a sap as to actually tuck in with the bear. He mentally moved it over to lay against some cushions on the window seat on Quentin’s side of the room, where he did his reading. They’d see the bear whenever they came into the room, at least. A hint of lavender and vanilla wafted around them at its departure.

Quentin watched it go, then settled against Eliot’s chest again. He thanked him for dinner, and for helping with his brain, as he always did. Eliot simply pressed a kiss to his hair, tucking his head underneath his chin.

“Goodnight, El.”

“Goodnight, sweetheart.”

They drifted towards sleep together. They felt the rise and fall of each other’s chests. They felt that security, that safety, of being treasured, of being known, of being together through the sorrows and the joys of the day.

In the moment before Eliot slipped under, he remembered something. He still didn’t know their bear’s name.

Suspecting that Quentin was already too far gone, he raised his free hand, and the certificate glided out of the box. He brought it as close to his face as he could.

He still had to squint. He was probably on his way to needing glasses. Again. This time, he might not stay in denial as long as he did before.

Under the name section was written “Bir.”

At first, Eliot didn’t get it. Until he did.

Trust Quentin – his clever, beautiful, humble, loving Quentin – to remember the Albanian word for “son.”

**Author's Note:**

> You would not believe the hours and hours I spent on the Build-A-Bear website. The Youtube videos I watched. The sheer amount of research I absolutely did not have to do for this 9.1k monster of a fic. I hope you're happy, you fluff heathens. 
> 
> -Also, Carrie is named because of Care Bears. Wynn is named because of Winnie the Pooh. I just felt like I had to let someone know that. 
> 
> -Also also, a giant apology to rizcriz if she ever reads this, for the Cruella reference.
> 
> -Also also also I am truly sorry for that sentence I wrote about the bear and the pipe. I have reserved my place in hell for that one. If I ruined anyone's childhoods with that...my bad, I guess?
> 
> -Also also also also, yes, that drinking game is real. My friends and I invented it during my senior year of college. And yes, we did watch Monsters Inc once when we played the game. Do you know...how many doors there are...in Monsters Inc? I was rolling on the floor in a drunken haze about a third of the way through the movie, kids. Do not try that at home.


End file.
